


And Then There Were

by AlexIsOkay



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 14:56:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20695433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexIsOkay/pseuds/AlexIsOkay
Summary: Something is wrong in Uchiura.





	And Then There Were

It was a pleasantly warm summer day. The sun was shining down through a clear sky, though it wasn’t too hot, and a cool breeze was blowing in off the ocean. The view was exaggerated further up at the top of the hill, standing at the summit of a long, sloped street that lead towards the small, concentrated heart of Uchihara. Though the road was paved and decently wide it wasn’t exactly busy, especially at this time of day. During the morning and evening rush hours more vehicles would pass by, but during the middle of the afternoon it was all but abandoned.

“I can totally do this.”

“You’ll get yourself killed.”

“Don’t be such a worrywart, Dia.” Dia glanced over out of the corner of her eye to see Kanan grinning back at her- and to see the skateboard currently tucked under Kanan’s arm. Dia wasn’t sure where Kanan had even _ found _ a skateboard in the first place, but somehow she had, and now she’d gotten the idea in her head that it would be “totally rad” to ride said skateboard all the way down the hill into town. Admittedly, she hadn’t come up with that idea entirely on her own.

“Yeah, Dia! Don’t be such a worrywart!” Mari mimicked from Dia’s other side, tossing an arm around Dia’s shoulders. “You should have a little faith in Kanan. She’s _ very _ athletic, you know.”

“Athletic when it comes to swimming and dancing,” Dia replied. “Have you ever even _ ridden _a skateboard before, Kanan?”

“Come on Dia, I’m not stupid. I learned how to use it on the way over here.” Dia let out a long sigh at that point, burying her hands down into her face for a moment, but she knew it was already a lost cause by this point. Dia was used to being the voice of reason in their friend group, sure, but she was also used to being outnumbered. When Kanan and Mari got an idea in their head, and when they were dedicated to it, there was very little Dia could do to talk them out of it.

“Fine,” Dia sighed out, realizing there was little point in continuing to argue. “Just be careful, alright? Don’t go and get yourself hit by a truck or anything.”

“You have so little faith in me. Now watch and learn,” Kanan insisted. As she said that she dropped the skateboard down in front of her, letting the wheels clatter against the pavement. The hill was already sloping down a bit where they were standing, enough so that the skateboard started trying to roll away before Kanan managed to trap it under her foot. She rolled the board back and forth a little bit with her leg, and as Dia looked over she saw Kanan’s eyes narrowing as she looked down the hill, examining it carefully for a few seconds, as if her mind was running through silent calculations of speed and curve and trajectory.

“Getting cold feet, Kanan?” Mari teased.

“Hardly,” Kanan replied. “Here we go!” And then, with one firm push of her still grounded foot to get herself going, Kanan pulled both her feet up onto the board and started to roll forward down the hill.

“Be careful!” Dia called out after her, though Kanan was already putting distance between them quickly enough that Dia wasn’t even sure Kanan had actually heard her. The hill wasn’t quite what Dia would have described as “perilously steep,” but it definitely wasn’t a gradual incline either. Kanan was picking up speed pretty quickly, rapidly growing smaller in Dia’s vision as she got further and further away.

“Look at her go!” Mari called out, cupping her hands around her mouth to project her voice out further. “_ GO KANAN GO! _”

“I can’t believe you talked her into this,” Dia murmured, still watching as Kanan started to get far enough away that Dia had to squint her eyes just to still be able to make her out. And, as she did that, Dia was suddenly struck by just how _ tall _ this hill actually was. She’d known it was big, she’d walked past it nearly every day of her life and always saw it stretching up over their town, but now that she was standing at the top looking down it felt that much taller than it ever had before. Dia had never considered herself to be a person with a fear of heights, but suddenly something about the sight of this massive hill stretching down in front of her was causing her stomach to turn. The road leading down towards the town was already so long, and as Dia stared at it she could swear it was getting even longer, like the hill was growing taller, like the ground was getting further and further away. Her vision seemed to blur a little bit, and the sudden pang of vertigo-induced nausea caused Dia to double over for a moment, hands gripping at her stomach while she screwed her eyes shut tightly.

“Dia?” she heard Mari say from beside her. “Are you alright?”

“Yes. I’m- I’m fine,” Dia insisted, forcing herself to open her eyes back up. She tried to pull herself upright, though her stomach still didn’t feel the greatest, and she returned her eyes to the hill in front of her, trying to make out Kanan’s distant figure. As she looked around, though, eyes scanning up and down the street, Dia realized that she had lost sight of Kanan entirely. Her brow furrowed down, trying to figure out where she had ended up, and though she spoke to Mari again Dia still wasn’t able to pull her eyes away from the hill. “Where did she go?”

“Hmm?” Mari replied. “She went away. You watched her, didn’t you?” Dia was about to respond to that, though she quickly found that she didn’t quite know how. Instead she stood there with her mouth open for a few seconds, trying to process it, before eventually giving up and deciding to ask a different question instead.

“Is she coming back?” That time it was Mari who was silent for a few moments, for long enough that Dia finally pulled her eyes away from the hill to look over towards her friend. When she did she saw that Mari was still staring out over the town, eyes locked onto the distance, wistful expression bathed in the orange glow of the early-evening sun.

“No,” Mari eventually said, hair bobbing lightly as she shook her head back and forth. “I don’t think she is.”

* * *

Dia still felt a little bleary-eyed as she dragged her feet down the hallway outside her bedroom, though she had been awake for nearly an hour at that point. She had showered, brushed her teeth, gotten dressed, made breakfast, and now she was nearly ready to leave. The whole time she had been getting ready she hadn’t heard movement anywhere else in the house, though, and by this point Dia was getting worried that her sister might have overslept.

“Ruby,” she called out, approaching the door to her sister’s bedroom and knocking her knuckles against it a few times. “Are you up yet? You’re going to be late for school.” After saying that Dia waited for a moment, though when she didn’t receive a response her brows creased down. “Ruby?” she repeated, before reaching down to slide the door open.

The inside of Ruby’s room was dark, with the lights off and the windows drawn shut, and it felt rather barren as well. In the past Ruby’s room had been so colorful and vibrant, walls and shelves adorned with posters and merchandise for all the different idol groups she so adored, but more recently Ruby had done away with those decorations, simply leaving the walls blank instead. Dia wasn’t quite sure what had prompted Ruby to do that, honestly. Maybe it was part of some determination to do away with things she saw as childish in hopes that people would start to view her as more mature, but Dia simply thought that was misguided. Ruby’s cuteness had always been such a large part of her charm and her personality, after all.

“Ruby,” Dia repeated yet again, approaching the bed on the other side of the room. The sheets were made up neatly, though Dia could already see that Ruby herself was nowhere to be found. Just as she reached the edge of the bed, though, Dia heard a voice coming from the door behind her.

“Yeah, onee-chan?” Turning around Dia saw Ruby standing there where the hallway met her bedroom now, already fully dressed in her school uniform, bag hanging over her shoulder. She was smiling brightly, seeming to be in a good mood, rolling back and forth on her feet while she stood there.

“There you are,” Dia replied, letting out a sigh of relief. “I was starting to worry you had missed your alarm.”

“Don’t be silly,” Ruby giggled back. “I wouldn’t miss school for anything.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t,” Dia laughed softly, a little smile tugging at her lips while a sense of pride welled up in her chest over how studious her little sister had become.

“But if we don’t get going we’re gonna be late!” Ruby added on. “Come on!” As soon as she’d said that she was twirling on her heels, pigtails swinging around as her whole body spun, and in a flash she had disappeared past the side of the door frame.

“Ruby!” Dia protested, running across the room to chase after her sister. “Wait for me!” As Dia rounded the corner out of Ruby’s bedroom, though, she found that her sister had already disappeared from the hallway, and as Dia continued down the hall until it let out into their family’s living room she still didn’t see any sign of her sister. “Ruby?” she called out again, inflection turning it into more of a question this time as Dia wondered how the hell Ruby could have gotten that far away that quickly. She looked around the living room, and peered into the kitchen as well, but neither turned up any indication that her sister was anywhere in the house at this point. Dia was confused, but as she eventually turned her eyes towards the front door, she supposed Ruby must have just been that eager to meet up with her friends on her way to school, the same way she always did. She was probably with Hanamaru and Yoshiko right now, all three of them walking to school together. Really, Dia told herself, the thought starting to repeat itself over and over inside her mind, there was nothing for her to worry about.

Ruby was off at school.

* * *

The rooftop pool at Uranohoshi wasn’t very crowded at the moment- in fact, Dia and Kanan were the only two up there. Dia was simply wearing her normal clothes, but Kanan was already changed into her swimsuit, having dragged Dia up there to keep her company while she practiced.

“You’re gonna time my laps too, right?” Kanan asked, dropping her bag beside one of the chairs before she started to walk towards the edge of the pool.

“I didn’t agree to that,” Dia protested. “I said I would come here to talk to you while you swam. I’m not your coach.”

“Well obviously,” Kanan snickered. “You swim like a drowning toddler.” Hearing that caused Dia’s irritation to bubble up a little bit, nostrils flaring out while her eyebrows creased down.

“That’s not true in the slightest!” she protested. “I am a _ superb _ swimmer!”

“If you say so,” Kanan replied, rolling her eyes as she stepped up to the edge of the water.

“I am!” Dia insisted. “I’ll prove it!”

“How are you gonna do that? You didn’t bring a swimsuit,” Kanan reminded her. “You’re not gonna go jumping in the pool with your clothes on, are you?” Dia was a little caught off guard by that, her indignant expression momentarily giving way to a flustered one as she realized Kanan had a point. While Dia would normally never even dream of jumping in the pool while fully dressed, though, she was now backed into a bizarre scenario where her desire to be prim and proper was conflicting with her stubbornness, and ultimately it seemed as if her stubbornness was winning out.

“I could,” she stated, starting to walk closer to the pool’s edge.

“Dia,” Kanan replied, her voice taking on a sudden stern note. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“If you jump in that pool you’re gonna get hurt.”

“Is that what you think?” Dia scoffed. “Just because I’m not a member of the swim team doesn’t mean I don’t know how to swim at all.”

“_ Dia, _” Kanan repeated. “If you jump in that pool, you’re going. To get. Hurt.” Dia was already standing at the edge by this point, but Kanan was speaking with enough conviction now to give her pause. She looked over towards her friend, and she saw Kanan staring back at her with an entirely grave, entirely serious expression, holding it for a moment before letting it soften. “Just watch me, alright?”

“Fine,” Dia sighed.

“Good.” And with that Kanan was throwing herself forward into the pool, arms stretched out above her as she executed a beautiful dive to break down through the water’s surface. For a moment Dia watched as Kanan started to pull her way across the pool with broad, powerful strokes, showing that she was just as excellent a swimmer as she’d always been, but Dia’s attention only stayed there for a moment before it ended up being pulled down towards the water itself instead.

Dia crouched by the edge to bring herself closer to the surface, and she leaned forward a little bit to peer down. As she leaned in Dia couldn’t see her own face reflected in the ripples, and instead found the water to be shockingly clear, enough so that she felt as if she was staring right through to the tile flooring at the bottom. The pool was deeper than Dia had realized, enough so that she was suddenly a bit thankful that Kanan had talked her out of jumping in. And then, as Dia crouched there, she was suddenly gripped by that same sense of head-spinning vertigo she’d felt a few days before while standing at the top of the hill, watching Kanan skateboard down into the distance. Dia’s fingers clutched at the edge of the pool to try to steady herself, but it was to little avail, and before Dia knew it she found herself losing balance and plunging face-first into the water.

* * *

The Ohara Hotel was a familiar enough locale to Dia. With Mari’s family owning it, and with Mari living there, she ended up spending quite a bit of time there whenever they wanted somewhere to hang out. As they made their way up the drive that lead there Mari was walking alongside Dia, running her mouth as she so often did, and by this point Dia had more or less resolved to ignore her.

“And the _ beaches _ in Italy, oh, they’re nothing like the ones here,” Mari was saying. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. The beaches in Uchiura are nice, in a quaint little sort of way, but the beaches in Italy are downright gorgeous. Don’t you think, Dia?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Dia replied. “I’ve never been there.”

“Right,” Mari giggled back. “Of course.” As Mari spoke she reached the front doors to the hotel, and she reached down to grab the handle, though as she tried to pull it open the door just rattled in place at first. Mari frowned, yanking a bit more aggressively, but still the door seemed to resist her.

“Is it broken?” Dia asked, frowning as she stepped up beside Mari.

“Oh, it’s been doing this recently,” Mari replied. “Something in it must be getting stuck somewhere. Father’s been meaning to hire someone to fix it, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Let me try,” Dia insisted, brushing Mari out of the way to grab the handle herself. The first time she pulled it she found herself running into the same issue Mari had, though after that she tried again more forcefully, and a few more times after that, until Dia was finally able to yank the door loose from whatever was jamming it, sending it swinging open.

“Yay Dia!” Mari sang out, skipping past her into the hotel lobby. “My hero!” Dia merely rolled her eyes as she followed Mari into the building, and she was already starting to follow Mari across the lobby towards the elevator she was so used to taking up to the top floor as well, though when she was only about halfway across she was struck by a strange realization.

“Say,” Dia said, stopping in her tracks as she started to look at her surroundings, eyes glancing from the reception desk, to the chairs and sofas set up in the middle of the room, to the little balcony overlooking the ocean outside. “Where is everyone?”

“Hmm?” Mari replied, twirling on her heels to face Dia once again. “Why, whatever do you mean?”

“The guests,” Dia insisted, brow creasing down as she realized just how empty the space around them felt. “It’s strange for the hotel to be this deserted. There’s not even anyone manning the desk.”

“Guests?” Mari repeated, giggling as she started to walk back towards Dia. “What guests?”

“The hotel guests! I know it’s the middle of the day, but usually there are at least a _ few _people milling around on the couches or the balcony.”

“Dia,” Mari said, and her voice had suddenly gone heavy, causing Dia to look back towards her. “This place hasn’t seen a guest in ages. You know it’s been shut down for years.”

“What?” Dia asked, brow creasing down further, still waiting for the “_ It’s joke! _” that so frequently seemed to follow in situations like these. “That never happened.”

“Weren’t you paying attention?” Mari replied. “It was all over the news when it did. It was a big deal for the whole community. I’m surprised you managed to miss something like that!”

“If it’s shut down then why are we here?” Dia demanded. “Why are we standing in the middle of an abandoned hotel lobby?”

“You tell me,” Mari replied, shrugging her shoulders up dismissively. “You’re the one who wanted to come here.”

* * *

Dia stood on the edge of the sidewalk, listening to the engine of the bus rev up as it pulled away behind her. It was midday, and she’d just gotten back from a small shopping trip, two plastic bags now hanging down loosely from her fingers. Her other hand was tucked away in her pocket, thumb running back and forth along the edge of her phone. A nervous tic, maybe. Or perhaps she just didn’t want to miss it if it buzzed.

As the bus pulled off and left Dia alone by the edge of the street she started to walk down the sidewalk, starting back off in the direction of her home. Sidewalks and streets alike were relatively empty at this time of day, and the bus itself had only had a few other people on it as well. Dia was thankful for that. She didn’t do so well in crowds.

As she walked along, drifting between her thoughts and her surroundings, Dia was suddenly startled into focus by the feeling of her phone buzzing in her pocket. She jumped up a little bit at that, heart immediately beating faster, and she scrambled to pull her phone out and look down at her screen as fast as she could. All of that excitement disappeared in an instant, though, when Dia saw the notification that had appeared, and realized it was only an email from some list she was on, advertising a sale on some website she had bought a single thing from two years ago. Disappointing, and Dia’s face twisted into a scowl as she swiped the notification away.

Rather than immediately putting her phone back into her pocket, though, Dia felt a slow, repeated nagging in the back of her head, and she could feel an idea beginning to take form there. Not a good one, maybe, but a persistent one, one that wouldn’t go away or leave Dia alone no matter how much she might have wanted it to. Eventually Dia found herself giving into the temptation, thumb slowly moving across the screen to navigate through a few menus, until she was eventually opening her contacts, and then pulling up her favorites, where she found three names listed: Mari Ohara, Kanan Matsuura, and Ruby Kurosawa.

Almost without thinking Dia hit Ruby’s name first, then lifted the phone to her ear, listening as it started to ring. As Dia listened to the tones she realized her mouth had gone dry, and suddenly she became aware of her heart beating just a little bit too quickly in her chest, a pit of uneasiness growing stronger in her stomach with each beep that came from her phone’s speaker until, finally, Dia felt a wave of relief wash over her when she heard her sister’s voice on the other end.

“Onee-chan?”

“Ruby,” Dia replied, lips twitching up into the smallest of smiles. “How are you?”

“I’m- I’m good!” Ruby replied, pausing for a moment after that, before asking, “Um… Is there a reason you’re calling?”

“Hm? No, nothing in particular,” Dia replied. “It’s just been a while since we spoke. I wanted to see how you were.”

“Ah! I’m really sorry,” Ruby said, “but- I’m actually on my way to an exam right now!” Oh. Of course she would be. It was that time of year, after all, and when Dia had texted Ruby a few days ago Ruby had mentioned how intensely she had been studying. Dia was disappointed to hear that, certainly, but she wasn’t about to stand in the way of her sister doing well at college.

“Ah, of course,” Dia replied, swallowing before she continued to speak. “I won’t hold you up, then.”

“We’ll talk later, okay?” Ruby promised.

“Alright,” Dia agreed. “But for now go ace your exam. Ganbaruby,” she said.

“Ganbaruby!” Ruby agreed, before the call came to an end. Pulling her phone back away from her ear Dia looked down at her screen again, at the picture of her sister that blinked there for a few seconds before fading, and in doing so Dia realized her hand was shaking. Her mouth felt even drier than before, and there was a tightness in Dia’s chest, but almost without thinking she navigated to the next contact, tapping on Mari’s name and lifting her phone to her ear again.

Once more Dia listened to her phone ring once, twice, three times, the nervousness in her chest and her stomach growing stronger with each passing second. Dia was gripping her phone more tightly, enough that her knuckles were going white against the edge of it, and her other hand was doing a similar thing with the grocery bags she still carried. Finally, though, Dia heard another voice coming through the speaker.

“Dia?”

“Mari,” Dia replied, and even from that one word she realized her voice was already a bit more uneven than it had been while she had been speaking to Ruby. “I- How are you?”

“I’m- I’m well,” Mari replied. “How are you?”

“I’m- I’m doing alright,” Dia lied. A moment of silence settled between them after that, and then Dia heard Mari speaking up once again.

“Dia, I’m so sorry, but I’m just about to go into a meeting. Can I call you back later?” Once more Dia felt a tightness in her chest, a pang of nausea in her stomach, but who was she to say no to that? Who was she to think she was more important than Mari’s job?

“Yes, of course,” she replied. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“You’re not a bother at all,” Mari promised her. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m done, alright?”

“Right,” Dia agreed.

“I’ll talk to you soon.” And then that called ended, and as Dia pulled her phone away yet again her hand was shaking even worse than before. It was shaking badly enough that it was hard just for her to move down to the next contact, to tap on Kanan’s name and lift the phone back to her ear, but she ultimately managed to do so, stomach twisting itself in knots while she listened to the dial tone. Dia realized how unsteady her breathing was by this point, and she was hardly paying any attention to her surroundings anymore, unable to focus on anything beyond herself. But, eventually, she heard yet another voice on the other end.

“Hey, Dia!” Kanan greeted, sounding as cheerful and enthusiastic as ever. “What’s up?”

“Kanan-” Dia blurted back, simply saying her friend’s name before she’d even thought about where the sentence was going. “I- H-Hello.”

“Dia?” Kanan said again, though her tone had changed now, and Dia could sense concern in her voice. “Are you alright?”

“I- I don’t know,” Dia admitted, voice shaking as the words left her. “I- I’m-”

“Hey, hey, deep breaths,” Kanan insisted. “Talk to me.”

“I’m- I just-” Dia stammered, already feeling herself losing coherence. “I-”

“Dia. What year is it?” The question threw Dia, giving her a moment of pause, and she shouldn’t have had to think about it for as long as she did.

“It’s- It’s twenty twenty-one,” she finally managed to answer.

“That’s right,” Kanan said. “And where am I?”

“You’re- You’re in Australia,” Dia replied.

“Good. Now talk to me,” Kanan urged. “What’s going on?”

“I- I don’t know,” Dia choked out, shrinking in on herself as she spoke. “I just- It’s- It’s been a bad few days,” she admitted. “And- And I think it’s been getting worse. I- I can barely keep myself together anymore- I’m falling apart, Kanan. I’m falling apart, and I don’t know what to do about it, and I… I…” Dia trailed off at that point, words giving way to heavy breaths as the tightness in her chest started to grow worse and worse. She knew she was breathing far too fast but she couldn’t stop it, and her own breaths were so loud she could barely even hear Kanan in her ear over them.

“Dia? Dia!” Kanan was shouting, but her voice seemed like it was getting quieter and quieter, further and further away. “Stay with me! Talk to me! Dia! DIA!”

“Dia!” And then Dia heard a voice coming from right in front of her, loud and clear, cutting through all the other noise and static. It startled Dia, enough to pull her from her panic, and as she started to focus on her surroundings again Dia realized that she was doubled over now, shrinking down far enough that her knees were pushed to her chest as she crouched on the sidewalk. The voice confused Dia, and she blinked a few times to try to make her eyes focus, looking up to see who was standing in front of her.

Kanan.

Kanan was standing there, wearing her Uranohoshi uniform, bent down just a little bit to bring herself closer to Dia’s eye level. She was smiling, and her face was carrying just as much enthusiasm as her voice.

“You feeling okay, Dia?”

“I- I-” Dia tried to reply, brain still disoriented and confused, trying to make sense of her surroundings. She realized she was still holding her phone in her hand, but when she looked down towards it the screen was blank, and there didn’t seem to be anyone on the other end.

“Yoooohooooo,” Kanan insisted. “You’re freaking me out a little bit, Dia.”

“I- I’m sorry,” Dia finally managed to say, shaking her head and pushing her phone back down into her pocket. “I just... Got lightheaded for a second.”

“Well c’mon. We’ll get you something to drink when we get to Chika’s.”

“Chika’s?” Dia repeated, creasing her brow down in confusion.

“Yeah. We’re all meeting up there for practice, remember?”

“...Right,” Dia lied. “I remember.”

“Let’s go.” As she spoke Kanan reached a hand down towards Dia, and Dia eyed it for just a moment before reaching up to grab it. She squeezed Kanan’s hand tightly, and Kanan helped pull her back to her feet. “You ready?” she asked.

“I’m ready,” Dia replied. And with that she started off down the sidewalk once again, following along while she let Kanan lead the way.


End file.
